BofA California president and ‘classic music’s No. 1 maverick’ also to speak at event

Jun 19, 2017

Facebook chief operating officer and best-selling author Sheryl Sandberg will be the featured speaker when University of the Pacific hosts the next Advancing Women's Leadership forum Sept. 12 at the Alex G. Spanos Center on the Stockton campus.

This is Advancing Women's Leadership's third headliner event at Pacific with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor featured in October 2015 and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in March 2013.

"This forum promotes and showcases women leaders in all areas," said Kathleen Lagorio Janssen, chair of Pacific's Board of Regents and a member of the Advancing Women's Leadership planning committee. "Bringing the likes of Sheryl Sandberg, Sonia Sotomayor and Condoleezza Rice to Pacific helps cultivate future leaders. We continue to be very fortunate in attracting such accomplished women to speak at our forums and will continue to build this event to inspire all leaders in every field in our region."

Two other women leaders - Bank of America California President Janet Lamkin and classical concert pianist, author and speaker Jade Simmons, known as "classic music's No. 1 maverick" - will also be featured during the Sept. 12 forum.

Sandberg, Facebook's COO since 2008, co-authored the recently published "Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy" with The Wharton School professor and bestselling author Adam Grant. She authored the international best-selling "Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead" and "Lean In for Graduates." Before joining Facebook, Sandberg was vice president of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google, chief of staff for the U.S. Treasury Department under President Bill Clinton, a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, and an economist with the World Bank.

She is the founder of the Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to build a more equal and resilient world via two initiatives, LeanIn.org and OptionB.org. The story of Pacific alumna Ty-Licia Hooker '12, founder of the Summer Success and Leadership Academy hosted at Pacific, is featured on Sandberg's LeanIn.org.

Sandberg also serves on the boards Facebook, the Walt Disney Company, Women for Women International, ONE, and SurveyMonkey.

Sandberg received a BA summa cum laude from Harvard University and an MBA with highest distinction from Harvard Business School.

Lamkin, who has worked at Bank of America for 18 years, has been California president of the bank's largest market since 2007 following two years as the first woman to be president and CEO of the California Bankers Association, the largest banking trade association in the country. She was named one of the 100 most influential business women in the San Francisco Bay Area by San Francisco Business Times for each of the past six years. Lamkin also received the Founders Award from the Women's Initiative for Self-Employment and was named Financial Woman of the Year by the Financial Women's Association of San Francisco.

Simmons, a Charleston, South Carolina, native, has been called "classic music's No. 1 maverick." She blends classical music performance with powerful, insightful presentations to inform, entertain and inspire people to become leaders of lasting impact on the world. The versatile performer has played at the White House and a concert hosted by Sotomayor at the U.S. Supreme Court. She also has been listed as one of Ebony magazine's Top 30 Leaders Under 30, and named Houston's Best Arts Ambassador. She is the founder of The School of Emergence, which helps entrepreneurs to succeed, and wrote "Audacious Prayers for World Changers: Live and Pray Out Loud."

The Advancing Women's Leadership forum brings together diverse and esteemed thought leaders from the local and national stages to inspire participants, especially young women, to make a lasting, positive and powerful impact in the communities where they live and work.

Advancing Women's Leadership founders include Kathy Lagorio Janssen, Lagorio Family of Companies and a Pacific alumna; Dea Spanos-Berberian, A.G. Spanos Companies; U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Connie Callahan, a McGeorge School of Law alumna; Cyril Seligman, EMMI Physician Services; and Kristen Birtwhistle, Kaiser Permenante and Pacific alumna. Callahan, Lagorio Janssen and Berberian have each served on the Pacific Board of Regents, Lagorio Janssen is the chair of the Board of Regents, all are past ATHENA recipients, and they are committed to the advancement of women and men in Stockton and San Joaquin County.